perfume
The childhood terrors of Judith Hermann
The German writer recalls her grandmother’s collection of voodoo dolls and her father’s surreal invention of a stunted lodger living in the suspended ceiling
The strange potency of cheap perfume
Adelle Stripe has constructed a memoir around 18 key fragrances, but it is the Body Shop’s cheery Dewberry that evokes her worst teenage experience
Perfume and politics
This is a curious book, by turns profound and whimsical. Karl Schlögel, a professor of Eastern European history at Frankfurt,…
In bad odour
Michael Bywater wonders why the existence of smell still seems such a guilty secret
Your problems solved
Q. Is there a polite way of not letting someone hold your baby? I love giving mine to people to…
